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A cardiac arrest that caused serious swelling of brain finally got better of the fighting spirit of the country's 23-year-old daughter on Saturday .

She breathed her last at Singapore's Mount Elizabeth Hospital at 2.15am (IST) on Saturday.Cerebral edema — serious swelling of the brain that resulted from the cardiac arrest on Tuesday when Nirbhaya was still in Safdarjung Hospital — finally proved fatal. Though she wasn't declared brain dead, doctors said Nirbhaya never regained consciousness after the heart attack on Christmas night. "Till the cardiac arrest, we were actually hopeful that we could revive her," a doctor told.

Fresh details that were revealed by Dr M C Misra, chief of AIIMS' trauma centre, showed that Nirbhaya had suffered from a deadly condition, Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation (DIC), on December 23 following which she started bleeding from all over her body.

During DIC, the proteins that control blood clotting become abnormally active. …

In a first for the country, the armed forces are set to have an intestinal transplant facility at a top hospital in the capital as early as next month, a need that was highlighted after the 23-year-old Delhi gangrape victim had to be shifted to Singapore for treatment.
A top official of the Armed Forces Medical Services said Friday the complex transplant could soon take place at the Research and Referral hospital in New Delhi and clearances are being sought to start it.
“We are already in the process of starting the intestinal transplant facility. No such facility exists in the country at this time,” Director General AFMS, Air Marshal D P Joshi, said.
Joshi said that a team from the Health ministry would visit the hospital soon before giving permission to start the facility. “We have already applied to the government to start it in January. The team may come to inspect the R&R and we have adequately trained people who will do the needful,” he said.
While armed forces doctors refu…

From Dec 16, when the 23-year-old was raped in a moving bus in Delhi, to Dec 29, when she died of her grievous injuries in a Singapore hospital, a sequence of 13 days that stopped a nation in its tracks:

Dec 16 - The physiotherapy intern and her friend on the way back from a movie get into a bus at Munirka in south Delhi. She is gang-raped and tortured in the moving bus and her friend beaten. The couple is stripped, robbed and thrown out of the bus. Spotted by a toll plaza patrol vehicle and admitted to Safdarjung Hospital.

Dec 17: Police arrest bus driver Ram Singh and two accused.

Dec 18: The fourth accused held. Large numbers of people gather at India Gate to demand justice for the woman, battling for life.

s questions cropped up over shifting the Delhi gangrape victim to Singapore, the doctor, who led the team that treated her in Safdarjung Hospital, and another who accompanied her in the air ambulance, today rebutted criticism of the decision saying the intention was to save her at any cost.
Maintaining that this was not not the time to have a debate whether the decision to shift her was political or medical, Dr B D Athani, Superintendent of Safdarjung Hospital, said "The pure intention was to save her. The whole nation was praying for her and everyone was hoping for the best. We could not have given hope. We wanted to save her."
Dr Yatin Mehta, a critical care specialist of the Medanta Medicity Hospital, said he was surprised by criticism of the decision.
Some experts like Dr Samiran Nandi of the Ganga Ram Hospital had expressed surprise why a critically ill patient with infection in blood and body, high grade fever and on ventilator was been transferred.
"It was alway…

Condoling the death of the gang-rape victim, the Indian Medical Association today questioned the airlifting of the 23-year-old victim to Singapore for advanced treatment and wanted to know whether hospitals in India lack infrastructure to treat such patients.
The IMA sought to ask the government whether the reason to shift the patient was purely for medical purposes or there were other factors.
The paramedic student was airlifted to Singapore on Wednesday night after undergoing treatment for 10 days at the Safdarjung Hospital. Many doctors have questioned the move with some directly attacking the government, saying it was a political move.
K Vijayakumar, president of the IMA, told that a doubt arises in everyone's mind whether the country's premier institutes and hospitals lack infrastructure to treat such patients.
"Indian hospitals have infrastructure at par with their counterparts in other countries. India is emerging as a major centre of medical tourism and obviously…

A swollen brain finally got better of the fighting spirit of the 23-year-old gang-rape victim Nirbhaya as she succumbed to her injuries at Singapore's Mount Elizabeth hospital at 2:15am (IST) on Saturday.

Cerebral edema - serious swelling of the brain, which resulted from the cardiac arrest on Tuesday night when Nirbhaya was still in India, along with severe infections, finally proved fatal.

A CT scan that was conducted after Nirbhaya reached Singapore showed that blood loss to her brain caused during the three-minute period when doctors at Safdarjung hospital in Delhi had failed to find a pulse or blood pressure, led to the brain edema - a dangerous condition where the brain's water content rises, causing the pressure to rise in the skull.

This cuts off oxygen supply as the blood vessels become squeezed. Cerebral edema is a medical emergency that can even lead to death as brain cells become damaged and die.

In the 10 days of her stay at Safdarjung Hospital, the 23-year-old gang rape victim named Nirbhaya by TOI never showed a sign of depression or hopelessness. She would express her desire to live and get back to work as soon as possible, the doctors who attended to her said on Thursday. Nirbhaya’s fighting spirit, they added, inspired them to take up all possible medical interventions and treatment modalities to help her survive. “She suffered two cardiac arrests on Tuesday night, a day before being flown to Singapore for further treatment. Her heart functions were restored successfully by administering DC shock but the clotting of blood in the arteries left her weakly comatose. She was put on artificial life support,” said a senior doctor. He added: “She is not in a condition to undergo any surgery or transplant.” Dr M C Misra, chief of the AIIMS trauma centre who was a part of the multi-disciplinary team of doctors attending to Nirbhaya, said on December 16, her condition was …

Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences, Bangalore will be conducting the Karnataka Post Graduate Entrance Test on 24/02/2013 for admission to Post Graduate Degree/Diploma courses in Government Medical/Dental colleges and for Government seats in Private Medical/Dental colleges of Karnataka for the academic year 2013-2014. The eligible candidates willing to appear for the entrance test may fill the application form online on the RGUHS website www.rguhs.ac.in orwww.rguhspget2013.com from 02/01/2013. The conduct of PGET – 2013 (Medical & Dental) and the announcement of the results will be subjected to the outcome of the SLP No. (C) 101/2012 before the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India.

For PGET-2013 brochure and other details will be available at RGUHS website from 28/12/2012.

As a part of the continuing medical education (CME) by PG Times, this article covers newer guidelines to treat tuberculosis (TB), which all doctors should know about. The standardized treatment regimens are one of the pillars of the DOTS (directly observed treatment, short-course) strategy. First Line Drugs: Isoniazid, Rifampicin, Pyrazinamide, Ethambutol and Streptomycin. Second Line Drugs: Kanamycin, Ethionamide, Cycloserine, Capreomycin, Fluoroquinolones, Macrolides and Rifabutin. Most DOTS regimens have thrice-weekly schedules and typically last for 6 to 8 months, with an initial Intensive phase and a Continuation phase. Based on the nature/severity of the disease and the patients’ exposure to previous anti-tubercular treatments, RNTCP (Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme) classifies tuberculosis patients in to two Treatment Categories. 1. New Cases New Sputum Smear-positive, New Sputum Smear-negative, New Extrapulmonary Tuberculosis, 2H3R3Z3E3 + 4H3R3 — means Four drugs at Thr…

MISSION MDS 2013 This guidance book designed for students preparing for their Post Graduate Dental Entrance Examinations covers the latest AIIMS November, May and AIPG solved papers. Salient Features ·Latest AIIMS November 2012–complete test paper with genuine questions, accurate answers with references and explanations. ·The fundamentals section covers points not to forget arranged in subject-wise manner. ·Mock Test (with answers) for all the 2013 MDS entrance examinations. ·Simple and clear presentation of the text in the form of bulleted points. ·Also useful for NEET preparation

Hundreds of foreign doctors, including those from India and Pakistan, are routinely failing key medical exams in the UK, according to a British media report. “Success rates are so poor that medical associations want doctors to be allowed six attempts at passing the tests rather than the current four,” ‘The Mail on Sunday’ reported. The findings raise fears that trainee medics, mainly from India, Pakistan and Nigeria, are not qualified to treat patients despite spending three years working for the National Health Service (NHS) before taking the exam. Until they pass the exams, which qualify them to practice independently as hospital physicians or GPs, trainees continue to see patients — under supervision — in placements at hospitals and surgeries. However, figures show that foreign doctors are substantially more likely to fail than UK graduates, with communication cited as one of the problems. While just 9% of British doctors fail to pass the knowledge and practical exams, more…

The only way for a scientist to become famous is continue living long enough,” Dr Rangaswamy Srinivasan chortles over the phone. “You know they don’t award Nobel Prizes to dead people.” Not that “Doc Srini” isn’t already renowned for his work on excimer lasers that led to the now-common lasik eye surgery. This is not the Nobel, but it ranks high in the American researchers’ scroll of awards. The National Medal for Technology and Innovation, for which President Obama named him this week, is the icing on a cake laden with honours. The former IBM researcher, now in retirement in New York at 83, is the only scientist of Indian-origin celebrated in the US National Inventors’ Hall of Fame in Akron, Ohio, alongside such legends as Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Samuel Morse, and Wright brothers, to name a few. Awards and recognition came thick and fast in the 1990s after Dr Srinivasan had toiled for half a century in the US, including three decades in the only job he ever held at IBM…

The condition of Nirbhaya, the gang-rape victim, is deteriorating with every passing day. Doctors say internal bleeding started on Sunday night due to clotting in the blood vessels. However, her platelet and white blood cell counts have since shot up due to supplements. On Sunday, there was severe bleeding in her abdominal cavity due to “disseminated intra vascular coagulopathy”, a condition in which clots are formed in the blood vessels. These clots consume the coagulation proteins and platelets as a result of which normal coagulation is disrupted. “There is bleeding in the abdominal cavity. Due to the infection and repeated transfusions, DIC has occurred. This was a prime reason for the sharp fall in her platelet count yesterday. We are trying to control the bleeding. As compared to yesterday, her condition is not good today,’’ Dr MC Misra, chief of AIIMS Trauma Centre said on Monday. She has been given fresh frozen plasma, single donor plasma and platelet rich plasma to…